Dream Weaver

Sheila Stotts is the go-to girl in Hollywood for A-list actresses

who want natural-looking hair extensions.

An Army brat who spent her childhood in

Memphis, TN, met Elvis Presley when she was five

and talked rocker Ted Nugent into a makeover

right before he went on stage, Sheila Stotts was

born to make beauty history. "We lived in Atwater

Village, just south of Glendale in Los Angeles,

when I was in high school," says Stotts. John

Paul DeJoria, now president and CEO of Paul

Mitchell, lived in the same neighborhood. "I used

to trick-or-treat at his mother's house, but he and

I never put two-and-two together until we had a

conversation about it five years ago."

Stotts, who was adopted by her parents while

they were stationed in Germany, became a U.S.

citizen around the time that John F. Kennedy was

shot in Dallas. She lived in Texas then. It was earlier,

while living in Memphis, that Stotts, on a dare,

climbed over the fence at Graceland. She was

being escorted off the property by a security guard

when Elvis, wearing a blue bathrobe, came to her

rescue. "He invited me in," she says. "We had

Chips Ahoy cookies and milk in his kitchen."

It was in Memphis where Stotts made friends

moment. "They were adding raffia and yarn to

their hair," she says. "That's when I realized that

you could do things to make your hair appear

longer than it was."

It was also while in Memphis that Stotts met

Ted Nugent. "I'd gone to visit my cousins, who

were groupies," she says. "One of them was

dating a member of Savoy Brown. They were

opening for Ted Nugent so she got me backstage.

I had just graduated from beauty school and didn't

even know if I'd passed the state boards, but I

already thought of myself as a hairdresser, and I

had my shears with me. At first I thought Ted was

a roadie. I told him that I could give him a really

great cut and break up his curl. When he went

on stage, he pulled me on with him. That's when

I realized who he was. He asked the audience

what they thought of his new haircut. It was

phenomenal."

After Stotts returned to Los Angeles, she got

into a car accident. Nugent sent flowers to the

hospital. "My cosmetologist's license came the day

after the accident, but I couldn't work because

I'd dislocated my shoulder," she says. Russ Parks,

who owned the first unisex salon in

Glendale—this was the 1970s—

had offered her a job before her

accident, but by the time she could

work he had filled the position. "So

I got a job at the Scissor Shack in

Sherman Oaks," says Stotts, who

fame there. "They were my first

celebrity clients."

Later on she worked for Dusty

Fleming in Beverly Hills. Gene

Shacove—Warren Beatty based

him—worked there. So did

Harold Lapin, one of the Lapin brothers, who'd

invented lift-and-deposit color. "I learned so much

about color from him," she says. When she got

tired of the Beverly Hills scene, she moved back to

the Valley and opened the Sheila Stotts Salon in

Studio City. "I was an Aveda professional then,"

she says. She was also doing hair extensions. It was

in the Valley that she met her husband, Galileo

Stotts. When they married, they tattooed each

other's names on their ring fingers. Sadly, he died

in 2001. "Five weeks after we found our dream

house, he was diagnosed with cancer," she says.

They have a son, Cole, who's 12.

Today Stotts sees a roster of celebrity clients,

including Celine Dion and Mandy Moore, at her

studio in Woodland Hills. "I met Celine through

Peter Savick, an editorial stylist who's very

flamboyant," Stotts says. "He looks like a gypsy—

20 earrings, pants tied with a scarf. He called me

from the Beverly Hills Hotel where he was doing

Celine's hair. He kept whispering 'nightmare' into

the phone, so I packed up my entire kit and drove

right over with 300 ounces of hair in different

lengths, textures and colors. I stayed up all night

doing color correction and adding extensions. She

started touring wearing her long hair, which I think

is as much a part of her persona as her voice."

Barbara Lorenz, a set hairdresser for 35 years,

sought Stotts out when filming began for Oprah

Berry had about an inch and a half of hair," Stotts

says. "Barbara wanted her to wear a wig, but

Oprah insisted that she needed extensions. Barbara

didn't think it could be done, but I did a full head

using 12- and 32-inch wefts in different colors and

textures. I think I put in more than 1,400 bonds."

Stotts has done about 130 movies and more

than 50 TV shows. Recently she launched her

own line of products, including shampoo, blowdryers,

flat irons and brushes that won't damage

find out more. —MARIANNE DOUGHERTY